Customer Reviews

Population Control: Real Costs, Illusory Benefits

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Most people don't realize that soon, the world will be suffering from a dearth of young people rather than the excess that we have supposedly been enduring for the past few decades. Steve Mosher details the actual results of the brutal methods that population controllers have employed to keep down the numbers of the non-white peoples of the world and how successful they have been. He's especially interesting on China since he is a China expert who has lived in that country. I used to work for his organization, Population Research Institute, so I may be biased, but I believe this book is great compendium of the human rights violations and the developing social and economic costs of population control, costs which will become apparent to far more people within ten years. The book's endnotes point to a large amount of information for those who would like to learn more about this subject than they will get from the mainstream media and typical college courses, which take the anti-people attitude as gospel.

Mosher's book argues from the first line that "most of us grew up on a poisonous diet of overpopulation propaganda....Vice President Al Gore, who warned of an 'environmental holocaust without precedent'...that will engulf us if we do not stop having babies," and "The Population Bomb", that bestseller which predicted famine would soon be upon us.

Indeed most of the predicted demographic nightmare of growing population was based, not on overwhelming numbers of new babies, but on a huge elderly population, that, with new medical procedures, keeps living on...and on. That enormous new elderly population is what has mostly swelled the population numbers.

Now that those numbers of elderly are about to peak, the world population will start to decline. For some countries, such as Russia, Spain, Japan, and perhaps most of Europe, the population appears to be in a frightening death spiral.

Mosher is out to tell the truth, root out old assumptions, and he gives statistics that are bound to surprise you. Such as, "The old age tsunami that is about to hit Japan will not spare other Asian countries. The Four Tigers--Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore--are already long in the tooth. China and India, the world's two demographic giants, are tottering along not far behind" (p 17).

Russia is in dire trouble with population. Between now and 2050, all indications are that Russia will lose a quarter of its population. No wonder Putin has offered any woman willing to have a second child $9,000.

South Korea's birthrate is 1.2.

Thailand has a birth rate of 1.9.

What will happen to these countries as their populations decline? Will housing prices fall dramatically, and, with fewer consumers, will depressions result? How will these countries continue to care for the elderly?

These are the real problems we need to tackle, not problems of overpopulation.

Mosher gives a thorough history of the population control movement, including such famous names as Rockerfeller and Margaret Mead. Organizations like the World Bank and the UN, using code words like "reproductive health" have attacked the poorer countries of the world with sterilizations, sometimes forced or with bribes, abortions, and contraceptives. And lectures, endless, hectoring lectures.

Anyone interested in these facts will also want to read "Disappearing Daughters" which details the 100 missing women in India and China. Yes, that many female babies have been aborted or killed in India and China.

Since the days of Malthus we have been hearing that a non-existent "population bomb" is about to destroy the planet. Any sober look at the facts proves this to be wrong, but scientific facts don't matter to those who pursue ideological agendas.

This book is an excellent and sober analysis that shows why population control is such a flawed (and evil) agenda. Highly recommended.

This book is extremely well researched an argued. It debunks the Malthusian myth of overpopulation, and exposes how this misguided theory has been co-opted and used for ill by many groups.

The crimes committed by the "Population Control" advocates is genocide to say the least. Their utter depravity show no bounds and is expanding at an exponential rate. Their predecessors like Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao would be proud that they have continued in such an "admirable" way.

One note. I had been looking for a number of weeks before Amazon finally got the paperback version of this book in. Both Borders and B&N does not stock this book and they made it very hard to special order it. I canceled the order I had (for two weeks) at Borders when it came available on Amazon. Reading the book makes me wonder if they were purposely not carrying it (i.e. Censorship).

This is a book for all people to read and find out how population control will harm people all over the world.

The author is a staunch believer in the sanctity of the 'natural family' (father in a paternalistic role, mother in a helpmeet role, many children), and in the soundness of 'Natural Family Planning' as a method of promoting female autonomy. He presents no justification for these views, and he vilifies those who don't embrace them, especially those who also think that there are good grounds for embracing different sorts of families, and different (more effective! more REALLY female-controlled) schema for family planning. All of those who think that there are other sound social arrangements, and better sexual/contraceptive/family planning modes.....well....we're all wrong: we're 'anti-people,' 'pro-abortion,' genocidal, etc. 'Nuff said. Dogmatically written, virtually bereft of argument, selective in the choice of putative evidence and in the commentators cited....this is the sort of 'intellectual exercise' that is an exercise in self-indulgence, not a real contribution to the very difficult (and important) discussions about how we are to balance population, ecological, family, and individual concerns regarding choices to have (or not have) more children.

Oh wow, this book sad. It's people like this that will bring the world down. They're firm believers in god and the coming 'apocalypse' I'm sure, but they should know that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. People like this will bring it down upon all of us with their blind need for growth. In this hypothetical condensed version Texas he speaks of, what happens when it too doubles in population, or when the whole world is as densely packed, what then? He shows no thought for the future. All he has is an all consuming obsessive desire to grow. He's more of an animal than the creatures he claims to have dominion over.

This book tells much in a vociferous and prejorative language, villifying any person who wants to limit population growth. Though many of the facts are true, the interpretations often are wrong. The author makes out any person wanting to limit human population growth as a person trying to do great harm. Though some population control measures in some areas may seem harsh, the reality is that the human population has well overextended the ability of the earth to support us. Mosher neglects to address the REASON why there are people, governments and organizations who want to put limits on human growth. The fact is that humans are using up too many resources both renewable and norenewable. Each new person creates another footprint of carbon. The world is warming up. The more people there are, the more CO2 is released. Humans have also used up most of the oil. Our world wide agriculture system is heavily dependent on oil. The great strides of the Green Revolution have only been made by the large input of chemical fertilizers which need large amounts of energy to produce their yields. World Wide agricultural yields hit a peak a few years ago and they have started to decline. Part of the reason for this is that soils are being depleted. Soils cropped with only chemical fertilizers wear out when no organic matter is being added.Most of the arable land on the earth is in agricultural use already. Big tracks of rain forests are being cut down for agriculture, thereby agrivating global warming.
World fresh, clean water supplies are running out. Even renewable resources such as fisheries and trees are being used up so that it is hard to renew them. Some fish species are entirely wiped out.
If humans want to live, they can't move into all the wild places where wild animals and plants live. These species are essential for the health and the overall well-being and life-functioning of the planet.
If people want to see the effects on past civilizations of uncontrolled resource use and population, they should read COLLAPSE by Jared Diamond. In that book we see the story of separate civilizations that overshot their environment.
The trouble for us who live in the 21st century, is that we have no new place to move to. The problem is a global one.
My friend who gave me this book gave me an article by Mosher stating that the whole world's population could be fit into the state of Texas. Well. They might be able to fit in, but all their food and much of their water would have to be imported.
Mosher says that world population rates are declining. Yes, they are (though not as fast as the figures he claims). The reason why? All the programs, good and bad, have been working. Having worked in Africa, I knew many woman who wanted to have access to birth control- and this was not in the city, but in the village.
Since one farmer can produce enough food for 100 or more, I am not worried about having more old people than young. Many 0ld people, as we can see in this economic crisis we are now in, are able to work.
At what point does Mosher think that there is enough people? The world population has doubled since I was born. I don't think that the world, especially the natural world, is the better for it.
How does Mosher plan to feed all the people? How will they live when oil runs out? How will they drink when water supplies run low?
The best thing about reading this book is to understand why there are people who don't see human population growth as a problem so that those of us who believe that it is a big problem can try to refute some of their arguments.
Many populaton planners realize that coercion isn't the best method. What had been found to work is: 1. Give women access to safe birth control, 2. Help the culture understand that women should have access to birth control, 3. Education on birth control methods and family planning.
It has been shown that some women will choose to have no children, some will have 2, some 3, and fewer will have 4 or more, but that, in general, it evens out to a replacement fertility rate of 2.1.
It would be better to plan for lower populations, than to face resource wars when too many people fight over fewer and fewer resources.
This book leads the reader astray.